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It is not necessity that is the mother of invention, it is profit. That was true even before the invention of money. For example, it was the limited shelf life of such foodstuffs as fruit, vegetables, milk, and meat that reduced their value over time. The need to preserve food birthed the invention of dried fruits such as raisins, salted meat such as ham, pickled vegetables, and cheese.

Profit also birthed technological advances in transportation. Just as food that won't spoil quickly adds value, so does bringing goods from places where they are abundant and cheap to places where they are scarce and dear.

The abundance of dried spices in Asia and relative abundance of silver in Europe started intercontinental trade in the days of Rome. Caravans created wealth by moving them. But ships could carry more and create more wealth.

The continual quest for profit was the inspiration for invention on the high seas.
Library of Congress

The full-rigged ship, capable of long voyages out of sight of land, evolved in the mid-15th century and allowed the great age of European exploration to begin. By the 18th century commercial vessels had evolved somewhat from those three centuries earlier, having lost their stern- and forecastles. They still were not designed for speed, however, but for cargo capacity. Bluff-bowed and full-bottomed, with a length-to-beam ratio of little better than 3 to 1, they could rarely make six knots (nautical miles per hour) under even the most favorable conditions. Profit demanded carrying capacity, not speed—except in time of war.

There was one class of late-18th century and early-19th century ship, however, that was built for speed. Privateers were privately owned vessels that governments licensed in wartime to prey on enemy shipping. They needed to be able to overtake commercial vessels and, equally important, to outrun more heavily armed enemy warships.

The Empress of China had been built as a privateer, but too late to take part in the American Revolution. Her profit-seeking owners found it necessary to find the ship other employment. They invented the China Trade. The Empress of China, loaded with silver, ginseng, furs, cheese, and rum, sailed out of New York on Feb. 22, 1784, bound for Canton by way of the Cape of Good Hope and the Sunda Strait. The trip to Canton took more than seven months and the entire voyage more than 15 months.

THE TRIP GAVE HER OWNERS a profit of more than $37,000, a return on investment of about 25%. Within a few years John Jacob Astor was often clearing $50,000—a good-size fortune by the standards of the day—on a single cargo of furs shipped to China.

In the other direction, tea proved as potent in post-Revolutionary economics as it had been in pre-Revolutionary politics. Each year the new crop commanded premium prices in London and New York.

With fabulous potential profits of the China Trade beckoning, profit demanded ships that could make faster voyages. Increased speed in the tea races outweighed the need for capacity.

The War of 1812 was the last American war in which privateers played a major role. They were so effective that they drove up British insurance rates to a third of the value of the cargo. The Baltimore clipper schooner, originally designed for coastal shipping and short ocean runs, such as to the Caribbean, turned out to be ideal for privateering. (When the war ended, many of them were converted to the by-then illegal slave trade, which also needed to be able to evade warships.)

But Baltimore clippers were small, two-masted ships with fore-and-aft rigs. While very fast, they were unsuited to the long trans-Pacific voyages of the China Trade.

Naval architects began adapting the narrow, deep-draft hull and sharply raked bow and stern of a Baltimore clipper to a square-rigged ship. The Ann McKim, launched in Baltimore in 1833, was a step in this direction. But it was the Rainbow, built in New York in 1845, that is generally regarded as the first "extreme" clipper.

On her second voyage to China, she made the round trip in an astounding six months and 16 days (including two weeks in Canton)—a round trip faster than the Empress of China's voyage out.

Rainbow's career was a short one. She sailed out of New York on March 17, 1848, bound for Valparaiso, Chile, and then Canton. She was never seen again. But an increasing number of clippers slid down the ways in New York, Boston, and Baltimore, as well as in Britain, many of them even faster than Rainbow.Sovereign of the Seas, built in 1852, set the speed record for a sailing ship—an astounding 22 knots.

But the clippers turned out to sacrifice too much for speed. The long, deep hulls greatly restricted cargo space, and the huge sail area of clipper ships required a very large crew to handle, driving up costs. The first answers to profit's requirement for lower cost were less extreme clippers, often known as tea clippers. They soon took over the China Trade and other routes.

On land and sea, however, profit was driving the search for lower transportation cost. Find a way to lower those costs and the savings flow straight to the bottom line. Steam engines, bulky and expensive at first, were made more powerful and efficient. When the cost of steam power dropped sufficiently, the brief glory years of the clipper ship—the peak of the age of sail—ended.

The quest for profit continued: Reciprocating steam engines gave way to turbines, which gave way to lower-cost diesels. Today, cargo jets travel between New York and Canton (now Guangzhou) in 18 hours.

JOHN STEELE GORDON is the author, most recently, of An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power.